The immigration policy promoted by President Donald Trump once again came under scrutiny after a report that estimates that more than 145,000 American children have suffered the detention of at least one of their parents since the beginning of his second term. Behind the strategy the name of Stephen Miller appears again, considered one of the main designers of the most severe measures against immigrants.

According to an analysis published by the Brookings Institution research center and reported by the British newspaper The Guardian, the current immigration raids have caused a wave of family separations that experts describe as one of the most aggressive in recent years.

The return of family separations

Stephen Miller had already been singled out during Trump's first term for promoting the “zero tolerance” policy on the border between the United States and Mexico. That measure led to the separation of more than 5,000 immigrant minors from their parents, including babies.

Although Trump signed an executive order in 2018 to officially stop this practice, civil organizations and analysts maintain that separations continue under other mechanisms, mainly through mass detentions and accelerated deportations within the country.

The new report estimates that, among the minors currently affected, more than 22,000 were left without either of their parents at home after the arrests. In addition, some 53 thousand children would be under six years old.

“There is no systematic approach to protect the children of people detained by ICE,” the report warns.

The figures that alarm immigration defenders

The aforementioned media maintained that ProPublica investigations also revealed that detentions of immigrant parents practically doubled during the first months of the second Trump administration, compared to Joe Biden's administration.

The outlet also documented an increase in deportations of mothers with US citizen children, a trend that human rights organizations consider especially worrying due to the emotional impact on minors.

Kelly Kribs, a lawyer for the Young Center, said in statements reported by The Guardian that the current crisis “is causing the same trauma that we saw in 2018, but now at a speed and scale never seen before.”

Meanwhile, Miller has publicly defended Trump's immigration actions and recently said in an interview with Fox News that he feels supported by the Republican president's followers.